Erus woke up to the feeling of someone gently caressing his face with precise, familiar movements. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, terrified that the lingering warmth would vanish the second he fully awakened. Those fingers were everything he had been missing his entire life, and he refused to lose them again. They made him feel the safest and most loved mortal alive—the only thing he would cling to even beyond death.
Something warm escaped his eyes and traced his cheeks—he was crying! He had never cried since he learned his life was in constant danger, and that was when he was only three years old.
"If someone dares hit you, don't fight back. I will. When they threaten your life, kill them first... with my power."
A sudden flash of lips brushing against his ear while whispering those words struck him through the dark. He didn't see anyone, just an intoxicating floral scent that dragged up a broken, forgotten puzzle piece of his childhood memory. Then, the wind slowly drifted the scent away.
"Don't! Please, don't leave me again!" he shouted desperately, hot tears continuing to stream down his cheeks.
"Erus? I'm just watching the rising sun. We're not leaving yet," Cana's voice answered, abruptly dragging Erus back to reality.
He snapped his eyes open, momentarily disoriented by the unfamiliar room before realizing it was the quarters Mesi had assigned for him and Cana. He immediately whipped his head toward the window, finding Cana standing nearby, looking a bit confused. She was adjusting the window to let the beam of morning light spill directly over him, almost like she was trying to sunbathe a reluctant houseplant.
"Are you okay?" Cana asked, her tone laced with concern as Erus just sat there like a frozen statue staring at her.
Erus let out a deep, shaky sigh. It had all been a dream—yet it felt terrifyingly real. He was certain those words weren't just a byproduct of a wandering mind. He vividly remembered someone telling him those exact words, a woman with a sweet voice that carried absolute, unquestionable lethality, yet failed to make him feel threatened in the slightest. That voice belonged to his mysterious benefactor—the one he had been aching to remember ever since he lost chunks of his childhood memories.
"Erus?"
"Ah... the sunlight is too hot," he muttered, though he didn't mean it, and the heat didn't bother him at all. In truth, he craved warmth above everything else.
"Nonsense," Cana answered, easily seeing straight through his pathetic lie. "Are you numb yet? You chose to sit and sleep propped up beside the bed all night."
Cana's gaze drifted down with a hint of quiet exasperation to the mattress she had carefully prepared for him on the floor. Erus had stubbornly refused to sleep beside her on the proper bed the night before, yet instead of taking the pallet, he had chosen to slump against the bedside frame—too proud to share the mattress, but too desperate for her presence to sleep anywhere else. She had no idea why Erus had tried to avoid her last night when they had clearly shared a bed plenty of times before. Though back then, he had always remained fiercely, painfully alert to every single one of her movements.
"I'm used to it," he said, wanting to look tough.
But then the Reaper mark materialized in front of Cana. The sudden act surprised Erus, but not Cana. The Reaper's crimson eyes looked straight at her before it bowed.
"It said something to you?" Erus asked.
Cana had told him before that she could talk to both the Reaper and the Judgement, but he could never hear them utter a single word. Yet instead of giving him the answer he was expecting, she looked at him with an intense, deadly expression, her eyes full of fire.
"Were you hunted in your dream? Tell me exactly what you have seen!"
Erus scrambled up fast, hauling himself onto the bed as Cana teleported right in front of him, looking so fierce she seemed ready to kill. Her eyes once again bled into that abyssal darkness, holding the stars of the universe within them—beautiful as they might be, they were terrifying as hell, too. They were the only eyes he could never easily defeat.
Sitting on the bed, he looked Cana straight in the eyes. "Cana, calm down. No one hunted me in my dream," he said in the calmest way possible, not daring to make a single hand gesture. "Just... Just something from my past."
Cana's eyes narrowed as she tried to read him. "The Reaper felt your fear," she said, her tone softening.
"It's nothing. Feeling sad is different from being afraid. You really don't have to worry."
"Silly. Sadness carries more weight than any other emotion," she said as her eyes bled back to normal. "I advise you not to dwell on it too hard. The fragments will come naturally—you don't need to force them. Less overthinking," she added.
Her words caught him completely off-guard, making him freeze. She spoke with such certainty, as if she actually knew what was happening inside his head.
"Cana," he whispered, though nothing else came out.
What should he say? How would he ask? He usually said things straightforward to Cana, but now something was holding his tongue.
"Told you not to force it. You're still in the process of healing. Just focus on today's event. Okay?" Cana smiled at him, then caressed his chin.
He froze the moment he recognized that certain way of touching his face—it felt like déjà vu. Out of sheer reflex, he caught her hands, stood up, and pulled her into a tight, unannounced hug. He had no exact explanation for why he did it, but it felt right to hold the Cana he was embracing right now.
He closed his eyes, burying his masked face in her hair near her ear.
Cana stood frozen in surprise, but she didn't flinch or try to push Erus away. Hugging wasn't really his thing, so she figured whatever he had dreamed today truly had a massive impact on him. She could feel the erratic beating of his heart, his breathing unsteady with a mix of fear and adrenaline. Gently, she reached out and hugged him back, lightly patting his back to comfort him.
Neither of them had any idea how long they stayed like that. Erus seemed to have no intention of letting go until someone knocked on the door. It was Mesi, asking about breakfast.
"I like your scent," those words slipped past his lips before he could stop them, murmured right against Cana's ear.
"So, what—you planned on sniffing it all away?"
Erus didn't reply. He was the first to pull away from the hug, flashing a small smile that reached his eyes before he yanked the door open and dragged Mesi down the stairs, announcing over his shoulder that he was still the one cooking. Confused at Solari suddenly holding him in his arms, Mesi agreed at once.
Cana caught every word, her lips curving into a lopsided smile as she watched him go. So my prince has grown his spine now, huh, she muttered to herself with quiet satisfaction.
As the time ticked, the perverse hour for the special event in the kingdom of Northland crawled forward. Even before the sun fully cleared the horizon, the citizens began to scramble, swarming the palace arena to claw their way into the best viewing spots. Most were not nobles, but ordinary folk—blind sheep worshipping a king who treated them like livestock.
Only the knights manned the perimeter, scanning the crowd for anyone bold enough to disrupt the execution of the Teumessian fox. King Leomar's paranoia had spiked ever since his missions against a single target repeatedly crashed and burned. He wasn't stupid. He knew a fragmented kingdom simmered beneath his feet, and not all races bled loyalty to his crown.
Watching from a distance, Glecy scratched her head. Through Vex—her hawk-sized familiar—she mapped the growing crowds inside the open arena with clinical clarity. The bird glided through the upper air in absolute stealth. No knight looked up because the beast's aura bled no malice, masking its intent entirely.
"Are we really dragging ourselves down there this early? Shouldn't we track down Solari first?" she grumbled, her voice sharp with complaint.
She had abandoned her meal half-eaten back at the guild's pub the second the palace carriage rumbled to a halt, refusing to wait for the next run. Now, her stomach felt entirely empty, as if the food had vanished the second she dropped her fork.
"I'm here."
They all jumped at Erus' low voice behind them. Not a sound of footsteps, walking like an assassin and materializing like a ghost. If he were an enemy, they would have been dead before they could even blink. They spun around, fixing him with the wide-eyed stares of cornered prey.
Erus narrowed his eyes, reading his team's defensive posture before turning on his heel and walking away. The rest of the squad fell in line without a single word.
A heavy oak door greeted them when Erus finally stopped. Two guards heaved it open, and the rich scent of fine food slammed into their faces, immediately making Glecy drool with her eyes shining in pure joy. This was sweet justice for the meal she had to abandon back at the guild's pub.
They slipped inside right behind him, the exhaustion of the past events instantly burning away.
"Pick whatever you want. Just don't waste it," he told them after instructing the head clerk to charge every single bite to his tab.
This side of Erus was precisely why they swore by him as their Captain. He might be a brutal taskmaster during training and an absolute monster to outsiders, but once you broke into his inner circle, he spoiled them rotten. He always knew what they needed firsthand before dragging them into another grueling day.
The Grand Abyss eagerly lined up at the counter as the servers rushed to prioritize them—the undeniable perk of being the top hunter squad in the entire kingdom. They ignored the jealous stares and quiet mockery from the crowd. Whenever Erus opened his wallet, they squeezed every last coin out of it because he always meant every word.
"Captain, aren't you going to eat?" Kyla asked, setting her plate on the table. She noticed Erus walked straight to an empty chair and just sat there waiting for them. He hadn't ordered a single bite for himself while paying for their entire feast.
"I ate already," he answered simply.
Kyla's lips parted, but no words came out. Instead, she nodded, a heavy understanding settling in her chest. Something had fundamentally shifted in Erus' world. He no longer walked his path alone. There was Cana now, someone important enough to him that she was the only one he allowed to personally care for him. Kyla knew she had to accept it and bury any old feelings for her own peace of mind.
"Thanks for the food," she said, forcing a lively tone. She had no intention of ruining the mood.
"Captain, thanks for the food," the others chimed in as they scattered to find their own seats.
Erus gave them a casual nod.
"Captain, where is Cana?" Glecy asked, genuinely expecting her to be tagging along with their Captain.
They had even prepared themselves mentally to be lectured by Solari in case Cana had already told him about what happened yesterday.
"We have a duty to run today. Why look for her?" His counter-question landed heavy, sounding more like an interrogation.
"I—" Glecy glanced sideways at Ryden, who was already elbow-deep in his plate. "I just missed her," she muttered, though that was not the half of it. "Isn't she part of the team yet?" Even as the words slipped out, she knew it was overstepping, but her restless curiosity rarely kept a leash on itself.
Erus pinned her with a serious look. "Did she tell you she wanted to join the team?"
"Ah." Glecy swallowed hard while the rest of the squad shot her sharp glances, silently telling her to shut up and eat. "No," she answered, shaking her head.
A short, heavy silence stretched before Erus spoke again, his tone dropping into something deadlier. "Do you guys want her in our team?"
"Yes," Glecy and Ryden blurted in unison.
Erus furrowed his brow, staring at the two of them. He remembered they were the ones who had stuck closest to Cana the day he first introduced her. Had they been trying to recruit her behind his back?
He shifted his gaze to the rest of the squad, who watched him quietly.
"It wouldn't hurt to have another pretty face in the squad," Akiro remarked with a smirk. "And she doesn't seem harmful."
At that, Glecy choked on her own saliva even though she hadn't touched her food yet. Remembering how Cana had casually frozen and shattered mutated dragon crawlers into tiny glinting fragments made the word harmful feel like a sick joke, but she clamped her mouth shut and kept her observations to herself.
"Kyla?" Erus turned to his vice captain. He could not bypass her judgment on this. No matter what the squad wanted, he still had an entire blueprint of plans for Cana, including training her as his personal apprentice.
"You trust her, so yeah," Kyla answered plainly.
"Me too, Captain. If you trust her, I will be more than willing to take her in," Verna chimed in.
Erus stayed silent. It was a unanimous vote. There was no need to force a recruitment pitch just to squeeze Cana into the ranks.
"I'll try to recruit her then."
They all stared at him, dumbfounded. Tryto recruither? Wouldn't anyone have jumped at the chance to join the Grand Abyss? People practically begged to get in, even while mocking him behind his back, though most didn't meet the brutal standards. And Cana was already thick as thieves with their Captain.
Their Captain really treated Cana with a level of respect no one else in this realm had ever managed to command.
"Recruit her?" Kyla voiced out. "Haven't you planned for her to actually join our team later?"
Erus sighed and avoided their gazes. That was the first time.
"She is my apprentice and can join our missions as part of her training, but it's up to her if she wants to officially register as a member of the Grand Abyss."
Being a member of their team meant following more rules and taking on assigned missions that they could not easily turn down. Their spot at the top brought popularity, respect, and endless opportunities, but it always came with a dark side. They constantly found themselves the primary target of rival guilds and squads. Every move they made was watched and controlled by the higher-ups, the very authority Erus always defied. Their lives were perpetually on the line because the deadliest high-level missions always fell on their shoulders.
And definitely, Cana would not like that kind of treatment, especially from other people who were none of her concern.
Kyla nodded, understanding the situation. She thought Erus was simply concerned about Cana still being inexperienced, believing she shouldn't be forced into any dangerous missions yet. After all, they had all started at the bottom.